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Saturday, May 7, 2016

Veganism Sucks

7 Things That Are LIkely To Happen When You Stop Eating Meat

When I gave up meat in 2009 to do the Gerson Therapy for seventeen really fucked up health issues I had no idea what I was in for. I did not get the skyrocketing energy levels promised, I did not get the not so painless weight loss promised and ironically I did not get the "newly found feeling of joy and happiness" as is reported by so many new Vegans. They say that these are just some of the things you experience (read about it) but the benefits, as fucking strange as it may sound are sadly undeniable.

It sucks to be Vegan. But it's what good people do. Especially when your health is failing. You're going to blow chunks after a year of it but you start to see most of the health promises were true and health effects bloody phenomenal. I've always loved meat fish and dairy. And after seven long years of abstinence I've allowed occasional binges (organic and cruelty free versions) of my old favorites. And while this may enrage my Vegan "brethren" I have to say you're right. It's wrong to eat animals in a world of 8 billion people. But I rationalize it with "If I eat meat ten times a year as opposed to 365 times a year I'm getting most of the health benefit of a mostly Vegan diet and I can visit the dark side with little or no guilt." This is my majorly fucked inner dude talking. So according to any self respecting Vegan I might talk to I'm a total hypocrite and I would agree. And if you don't like it, bite me. I healed my body drove my prius, electric bike, saved water, cherished animal life and saved the freaking planet more than anybody I know. So I needed to fess-up to my internal truth meter. Being Vegan sucked. It always felt unnatural and while I enjoyed many delicious meals and amazing alternatives to meat (and will continue to do so) I needed to remove myself from the grip of the commitment for reasons I'm comfortable with. Any you bitches want to compare environmental footprint stats - bring it.

Today I'm a seasoned authority on what it is to take your diet to healing extremes. The Gerson Therapy is one such diet. It is strictly for people who are at risk. It is for health enthusiasts that want to clean up their bodies to prevent degenerative diseases in the future. Period. That's it. It's not for the faint of heart, for weekend health warriors or for wimps. Veganism is the next step down from the highly restrictive Gerson grocery list. Veganism emphasizes ethics and a genuine experience with post millennial morality rather than Gerson's imposed restrictions strictly for healing success.

Anyone with a seven brain cells and half a soul can see the wrongdoing in factory farming. There are no happy cows chicken pigs or lambs. There used abused tortured and poisoned. Happy cows? That ship has sailed. Anybody who thinks differently can seek help. On this subject there is not wiggle room, no space for debate opinion or political correctness. That is why Vegans are so angry. They have awakened to the fact that factory farming has gone too far and stepped over the line of decency into areas of abject cruelty starting perhaps two hundred years ago. People of conscience can not eat the flesh of tortured creatures. When this fact comes to life in the mind of the compassionate human it fills them with the light that can only be felt by the realization of an absolute truth and an expanded sense of logic and reason based in the spiritual art of compassion. And yes it's true. Eating animals raised with no compassion is cruel and if you deny this you're insane. The human capacity for duplicitous speciesism is telling about the archaic state of humanity today. We're cave men with cell phones. It is unwise to trust humans as they can talk themselves into terrible things or be talked into doing killing and eating just about anything. Personal health and spiritual growth be damned. Lets eat meat.

That said:

If you need motivation to become Vegan education probably won't help. But a good strong dose of cancer, arthritis, diabetes, GERD, allergies or huge amounts of weight gain might get you motivated to save the whales, chickens or mutton chops. So put the mayonnaise jar down and listen up because here is a very truthful story about what it is to be Vegan.

First of all it sucks. IT SUCKS for anybody and everybody who was raised eating meat dairy and fish. But it is a great way to test your mettle and it is a highly virtuous way live your life. The very idea that a person can rise to a level of pristine integrity so high appeals to some people. The life saving earth friendly beliefs of Vegans are in perfect sync with the needs of the planet, concur with modern day truths and health benefits and brings untainted joy love and compassion to then and their families.

Back to you the recent convert. You poor slob, drooling over your mom's family reunion pot roast ...that you can't have, or the turkey slices you crave but refuse. ...bitch please ...don't bullshit carnivores because they know you're one too. We were all raised to eat meat and to love it! We were programmed to believe in happy cows! Ones enthusiasm for a Vegan lifestyle, if you so choose to get one, comes from brutal self examination, radical honesty or the threat of a terrifying disease. If not it must come from your own personal experience of absolute bedrock truth and a desire for immaculate self respect - respect for your body, for life and for all sentient beings. It is a godly pursuit. And it can be a massive psychological trap. Feeling the pain and suffering of other living breathing emotional beings appears to be the beginnings in the next step of humanity toward higher states of consciousness and soul evolution. But this is not the case for most people because most of us could care less about human starvation and mass death that happens every single day. We just don't care - enough about anything beyond the borders of our comfort zone. Violate it and you get movement. Put a carnivore into an industrial slaughterhouse and you get, at the very least, a vegetarian - for a while.Death Culture 101:

Never lie about loving meat. You know you want it. But for whatever reason you choose not to consume it stick to your decision and ask your friends to please not to tempt you by offering you meat. Ask them to prepare you a vegetarian dish. They won't. Ask them again. They still won't. You could be dying and taking your last breath and some meat eating ZOMBIE friend will offer you a deep fried turkey leg. It's like drugs to them. And they don't care. Even when they say they do! They don't. They're here they're queer - get used to it. It is when you see this behavior that you start to wake up. The hard fact is they don't give a shit about you because they don't give a shit about themselves, their bodies or what the animals they eat go through every day of their lives. That's when you begin start to see the death culture. The worship and culinary obsession with "the beauty" and savory deliciousness of dead animal meat products turns on it's head for new Vegans when they start to see it as a genuine global cult of death that takes on all appearances (to the new Vegan) as that of a disease, mental illness or straight up insanity. When that starts sinking into your skull you start to link concepts like greed, war, the seven deadly sins, and world population statistics tied to the astronomical number of dead animals required for human consumption. You start to see your inner butcher hacking away at some screaming animal in complete and utter terror for it's life. You see how unhealthy the illusion and denial are. You understand the psychopathy of this lie as a driving force of culture in the face of genocide on a scale that is not only killing billions of tortured creature but is also depleting the oceans, unbalancing the ecosystem and killing the fucking planet. Death culture 101.

Cognitive dissonance to the rescue. Denial appeases and you head to the butcher shop for some Tri Tip. You deny how innocent pasturing of farm animals has turned into devastating mass cruelty. Every excuse, fabricated self deception gets center stage as the parade of rationalization takes over every corner of your mind and spreads to your soul. Your spiritual vibration drops like a rock and you flip on the TV to watch The Flintstones. The shift from natural guilt to unnatural guilt was so slow that our conscience never caught up with the new realities present in the lives of the animal kingdom as our dominion turned to domination and control. The entire world is literally hypnotized to mass murder and the denial of a natural existence for billions of creatures. Cruelty commensurate with that of Auschwitz lives on at every factory farm in the world. Veganism still sucks but it deflates suffering on a massive scale and brings the subconscious conscience in tune with our personal truth and a higher realms of evolutionary reality of cosmic consciousness. That is along with the stopping of all the killing. It sucks but the stopping of the killing is all very good.

Whether we become Vegan or not it is the waking up to the facts of modern life that matters. When we permit animal cruelty at this scale we are likely to permit other cruelties. The Milgram experiment verifies this fact of human behavior. It tells the story of just how easily manipulated and programmable the conscience is and how easily compassion can be removed from human beings who might otherwise deny any urge to inflict pain on others.

Still the trajectory of humanity appears to have a life of it's own. It appears we can not prevent our own extinction. So like the crazy monkeys that we are we will take down the entire planet, every tree, every animal and every consumable we like. We will plunder this poor planet.

until the day the last human dies...

The problem: We Can Not Change Fast Enough. Oh, And Nobody Cares.

1. Being Vegan sucks but the most important thing you can do for your overall health is to reduce inflammation in your body. Not eating meat is a killer way to stop inflammation in its tracks and get on the superhighway to health.

If you are eating meat, cheese, and highly processed foods, chances are you have elevated levels of inflammation in your body. While short-term inflammation (such as after an injury) is normal and necessary, inflammation that lasts for months or years is not. Chronic inflammation has been linked to the development of atherosclerosis, heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, and autoimmune diseases, among other conditions.

In contrast, plant-based diets are naturally anti-inflammatory, because they are high in fiber, antioxidants, and other phytonutrients, and much lower in inflammatory triggers like saturated fat and endotoxins (toxins released from bacteria commonly found in animal foods). Studies have shown that people who adopt plant-based diets can dramatically lower their level of C-reactive protein (CRP), an indicator of inflammation in the body.

2. Being Vegan sucks but your blood cholesterol levels will plummet.

Elevated blood cholesterol is thought to be a key risk factor for heart disease and strokes, two of the leading killers in the United States. Saturated fat—primarily found in meat, poultry, cheese, and other animal products—is a major driver of our blood cholesterol levels. Cholesterol in our food also plays a role.

Studies consistently show that when people go plant based, their blood cholesterol levels drop by up to 35% . In many cases, the decrease is equal to that seen with drug therapy—with many positive side effects! People who require cholesterol-lowering drugs can further slash their cholesterol levels and cardiovascular risk by adopting a plant-based diet.

Whole-food, plant-based diets reduce blood cholesterol because they tend to be very low in saturated fat and they contain zero cholesterol. Moreover, plant-based diets are high in fiber, which further reduces blood cholesterol levels. Soy has also been shown to play a role in lowering cholesterol, for those who choose to include it.

3. Being Vegan sucks but you’ll give your microbiome a makeover.

The trillions of microorganisms living in our bodies are collectively called the microbiome. Increasingly, these microorganisms are recognized as crucial to our overall health: not only do they help us digest our food, but they produce critical nutrients, train our immune systems, turn genes on and off, keep our gut tissue healthy, and help protect us from cancer. Studies have also shown they play a role in obesity, diabetes, atherosclerosis, autoimmune disease, inflammatory bowel disease, and liver disease.

Plant foods help shape a healthy intestinal microbiome. The fiber in plant foods promotes the growth of “friendly” bacteria in our guts. On the other hand, fiber-poor diets (such as those that are high in dairy, eggs, and meat) can foster the growth of disease-promoting bacteria. Landmark studies have shown that when omnivores eat choline or carnitine (found in meat, poultry, seafood, eggs, and dairy), gut bacteria make a substance that is converted by our liver to a toxic product called TMAO. TMAO leads to worsening cholesterol plaques in our blood vessels and escalates the risk of heart attack and stroke.

Interestingly, people eating plant-based diets make little or no TMAO after a meat-containing meal, because they have a totally different gut microbiome. It takes only a few days for our gut bacterial patterns to change – the benefits of a plant-based diet start quickly!

Scientists have made the remarkable discovery that environmental and lifestyle factors can turn genes on and off. For example, the antioxidants and other nutrients we eat in whole plant foods can change gene expression to optimize how our cells repair damaged DNA. Research has also shown that lifestyle changes, including a plant-based diet, can decrease the expression of cancer genes in men with low-risk prostate cancer. We’ve even seen that a plant-based diet, along with other lifestyle changes, can lengthen our telomeres—the caps at the end of our chromosomes that help keep our DNA stable. This might mean that our cells and tissues age more slowly, since shortened telomeres are associated with aging and earlier death.

An estimated 38% of Americans have prediabetes—a precursor to type 2 diabetes. Animal protein, especially red and processed meat, has been shown in study after study to increase the risk of type 2 diabetes. In the Adventist population, omnivores have double the rate of diabetes compared with vegans, even accounting for differences in body weight. In fact, in this population, eating meat once a week or more over a 17-year period increased the risk of diabetes by 74%! Similarly, in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study and Nurses Health Study, increasing red meat intake by more than just half a serving per day was associated with a 48% increased risk in diabetes over 4 years.

You will dramatically lessen your chances of getting type 2 diabetes by leaving animal products off of your plate and eating a diet based in whole plant foods. This is especially true if you eat whole grains, which are highly protective against type 2 diabetes. You read that right: carbs actually protect you from diabetes! Also, a plant-based diet can improve or even reverse your diabetes if you’ve already been diagnosed.

6. Being Vegan sucks but you’ll get the right amount—and the right type—of protein.

The average omnivore in the US gets more than 1.5 times the optimal amount of protein, most of it from animal sources.

Contrary to popular perception, this excess protein does not make us stronger or leaner. Excess protein is stored as fat or turned into waste, and animal protein is a major cause of weight gain, heart disease, diabetes, inflammation, and cancer.

On the other hand, the protein found in whole plant foods protects us from many chronic diseases. There is no need to track protein intake or use protein supplements with plant-based diets; if you are meeting your daily calorie needs, you will get plenty of protein. The longest-lived people on Earth, those living in the “Blue Zones,” get about 10% of their calories from protein, compared with the US average of 15-20%.

7. Being Vegan sucks but you’ll make a huge impact on the health of our planet and its inhabitants.

Animal agriculture is extremely destructive to the planet. It is the single largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, and is a leading cause of land and water use, deforestation, wildlife destruction, and species extinction. About 2,000 gallons of water are needed to produce just one pound of beef in the U.S. Our oceans are rapidly becoming depleted of fish; by some estimates, oceans may be fishless by 2048. The current food system, based on meat and dairy production, also contributes to world hunger—the majority of crops grown worldwide go toward feeding livestock, not feeding people.

Equally important, animals raised for food are sentient beings who suffer, whether raised in industrial factory farms or in farms labeled “humane.” Eating a plant-based diet helps us lead a more compassionate life. After all, being healthy is not just about the food we eat; it’s also about our consciousness—our awareness of how our choices affect the planet and all of those with whom we share it.